Leslie Morton (1903–1987) was a prolific English Marxist historian. He worked as an independent scholar

Independent scholar

An independent scholar is anyone who conducts scholarly research outside universities and traditional academia. Independent scholars play an especially important role in areas such as art history and other humanities fields...

; from 1946 onwards he was the Chair of the Historians Group of the Communist Party of Great Britain

Communist Party of Great Britain

The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

 (CPGB). He is best known for his classic A People's History of England , but he also did valuable work on William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

 and the Ranter

Ranter

The Ranters were an alleged sect in the time of the English Commonwealth who were regarded as heretical by the established Church of that period...

s, and for the study The English Utopia.

He was born in Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, and studied at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 from 1921 to 1924. There he encountered socialist ideas, possibly from the communist group that formed around Maurice Dobb

Maurice Dobb

Maurice Herbert Dobb , was a British Marxist economist, and a lecturer 1924-1959 and Reader 1959-1976 at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge 1948-1976.-Life:...

. Later he taught at A. S. Neill

A. S. Neill

Alexander Sutherland Neill was a Scottish progressive educator, author and founder of Summerhill school, which remains open and continues to follow his educational philosophy to this day...

's school Summerhill

Summerhill School

Summerhill School is an independent British boarding school that was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around...

.

He belonged to a group of London left-wing intellectuals of the 1930s, while working as a journalist for the Daily Worker

Daily Worker

The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...

. His friends at that time included A. L. Lloyd

A. L. Lloyd

Albert Lancaster Lloyd , usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s....

 and Maurice Cornforth

Maurice Cornforth

Maurice Campbell Cornforth was a British Marxist philosopher. When he began his career in philosophy in the early 1930s, he was a follower of Wittgenstein, writing in the then current style of analytic philosophy...

; he assisted Victor B. Neuburg. In 1932 and 1933 he was involved in a debate with F. R. Leavis

F. R. Leavis

Frank Raymond "F. R." Leavis CH was an influential British literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. He taught for nearly his entire career at Downing College, Cambridge.-Early life:...

, in the pages of Scrutiny

Scrutiny (journal)

Scrutiny: A Quarterly Review was a literature periodical founded in 1932 by F. R. Leavis, who remained its principal editor until the final issue in 1953...

.

His 1938 A People's History of England was adopted quasi-officially as the CPGB national history, and went through later editions on that basis.

He was part of the group of leading communist historians invited to Moscow in 1954/5, with Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm

Eric Hobsbawm

Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm , CH, FBA, is a British Marxist historian, public intellectual, and author...

, and the Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 historian Robert Browning.

Works

• A People's History Of England (1938)
• Language of Men (1945) essays
• The story of the English revolution (1949) Communist Party pamphlet
• The English Utopia (1952)
• The British Labour Movement, 1770-1920 (1956) with George Tate
• The Everlasting Gospel: A Study in the Sources of William Blake (1958)
• The Life and Ideas of Robert Owen (1962)
• The matter of Britain: essays in a living culture (1966)
• The World of the Ranters: Religious Radicalism in the English Revolution (1970)
• Political Writings of William Morris (1973) editor
• Freedom in Arms: A selection of Leveller writings (1975) editor
• Collected poems (1976)
• Three Works By William Morris (1977) editor
• History and the Imagination: Selected Writings of A.L. Morton (1990) edited by Margot Heinemann
  Margot Heinemann
  Margot Claire Heinemann was a British Marxist writer, drama scholar, and leading member of the Communist Party of Great Britain ....
  
   and Willie Thompson